Contractor Ruined Countertops w/ Epoxy - Looking for Help to Fix Them

[Ryan Kaylumbs]

The short of it is that my parents needed their kitchen island refinished and hired a guy that was recommended to them. He used "FAMOWOOD" Glazecoat available from Home Depot. I havent' seen it in person yet but from what they're telling me, and the photos I've seen, it has an almost orange peel-ish surface and there are some spots with divots that look like hammer marks. The guy poured the epoxy and used a roller to spread it around the surface. I'm guessing this is what contributed to the horrible finish.

Anyway, I'm headed up there next week and will be bringing my Festool RO150. Assuming it has fully hardened is this something that can be sanded down to level it out and then polished up? They don't need it perfect and are okay with some divots but can't handle the texture as it stands currently.

If it can be sanded/polished what jumps in grits would you recommend?

Thanks guys!

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[John C Cox]

The typical strategy is to first Level it, then progressively sand the scratches finer and finer, finally polish it. This assumes you have sufficient coating thickness to actually accomplish levelling it without sanding thru.

I would start off with an air file or a 3' long sanding beam with 80 or 100 grit PSA stuck to it. Level all the uglies till you have a uniform scratch pattern/hazy on to 90%-95% of the surface. This means there will still be 5-10% of the surface having "shiny spots".... This is very important to achieve a nice flat, non-lumpy surface. But you don't want to over do it...

Then start progressing through the grits to work out the scratches and finally polish it. Perhaps go 120-180 on the air file or beam... Just go enough to get rid of the scratches from previous sanding.

Then - crank out the ROS for 220-320-up as high as you have - hopefully you can at least get p800 or so. Same deal here.... Remove scratches from previous grits. It goes really fast if you have a fairly close grit progression.. WATCH CAREFULLY for any signs of overheating the finish with the ROS. If it clogs too fast or wants to over heat - switch to wet block sanding.

Then - move up to wet sanding with a sanding block and automotive sandpapers p800-1200-1500-2000 or so... Then polish it out with auto rubbing compound and polish. A buffer is super handy here.. But you can do it by hand just fine too...

If you did it right - you should have a reasonably flat and well polished counter top... And probably sore shoulders. .

Note: You will go through a GIANT amount of sanding disks and PSA roll paper. Shuck the paper and get a new piece AS SOON AS you see any pills on the sand paper or "shiny swirls/drag marks" on your finish...

[John C Cox]

When levelling and sanding - my typical strategy goes like this

New grit
#1 - sand crossgrain
#2 - sand 45 degrees to right of crossgrain
#3 - sand 45 degrees to left of crossgrain
#4 - sand long grain. Always always always end sanding long grain.. The scratch marks "match" the grain and it doesn't look as objectionable...

Wipe down and check for any crossgrain scratches.... Fix that with a redo of 45 degrees right, 45 degrees left, and long sanding grain BEFORE you move to the next grit.

Then change to the next grit finer. You will probably burn through a lot of the same grit paper during this progression... That's fine - it's normal...

With ROS - be careful to work with a light touch - even at higher grits... You can dig a hole or burn right thru the finish before you know it....

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I have used epoxy to repair woods on my turnings. You have gotten some pretty sage advice from John. Properly worked, without being overworked, epoxy can be sanded and buffed out to a really good finish.

[Brad Shipton]

John, have you experimented with the Mirka Heavy duty abranet disks for something like this? I am wondering it this would help reduce the number of disks needed. I have worked with a little epoxy, and it sure gums up quickly.

You will want to take your vacuum as this is going to be messy.

[Ted Phillips]

John sounds like he's got the right plan. The only thing I would add is to invest in some Abranet sanding disks. I've found that these disks clog a *lot less* than paper/cloth-based sanding material - especially when working on finished surfaces. The Abranet disks last an incredibly long time and you can get them up through 1000 grit...

Just my $0.02.

[Ryan Kaylumbs]

Thank you everyone for the feedback, I appreciate it immensely. A HUGE thank you to John for really taking the time to outline the process and provide a lot of detail. I made a 4.25" wide x 36" long sanding beam and ordered the PSA paper for the leveling. For the rotex I ordered 220, 320, 400, 600, 800 of Mirka Abranat. THen I ordered 1000g and 1500g of Festool Granat. We'll see how the finish responds to grits above 800 dry sanding with the RO sander. If there are problems we'll switch to wetsanding. I also ordered compound, backing plate and pads for the RO150 to run it in rotary mode and really buff everything up.

I'll post photos of the process along the way. Most of the materials to get started arrive tomorrow, the rest will arrive on Thursday.

I'll keep you all updated. Thanks again everyone!

[Ryan Kaylumbs]

Hey guys! Hoping to get some feedback. We started on the project this afternoon and tested a small section of the island. We're running into problems with some pretty serious blotchiness. I've attached a photo of what it looks like. My suspicion is that we're seeing the different coats of epoxy and that they're at different stages in the curing process. The top coat of finish can be sanded and buffed to a nice shine. The layer underneath will not buff out and has a more matte finish, even though they've received the same treatment.

You can see in the photos that the scratch patterns from the lower grits are evident and we didn't take the time on the higher grits to work out the previous grits scratch pattern. The pictures shown are from the second time around on the same spot where we tried to power through quicker to see if we got the same result. The "shiny spots" decreased in size on the 2nd go around confirming that they're from the original top layer of epoxy.

How would you approach this? Sand flat and re-pour? Sand to 1000 or 1500, wait for everything to fully cure and then buff it? Not really sure where to go from here. We spent quite a bit on the sandpaper/buffing supplies so we're a little worried.

The other issue is that the counters are not flat so my sanding beam will burn through the finish before the table is flat. We've already sanding through 2 coats of epoxy and apparently the guy used 4 so we're pretty close to hitting bare wood.

Thanks!

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[Wayne Lomman]

Use the existing epoxy as a primer and recoat it with either more epoxy or preferably a 2 pack polyurethane. You are not going to get it uniform with the variation in coating materials. Get it as flat as you can without sanding through. The new top coat you buy will have a guide as to what grit to finish the sanding at so make sure you read its tech data sheet. Also, read the tech data sheets for the product that is already on there. You need to be certain that it is all cured sufficiently for recoating. Sorry, but this is the best option. Cheers

[glenn bradley]

+1 on waiting till you have a full cure. Instructions say 72 hours in California weather. Instructions also caution against too heavy of a coat and advise a slotted trowel for large surfaces in order to spread the finish quickly enough. If the guy touched the finish after more than 15 minutes or so following mixing, he was pushing around material that was already curing.

The question of why the contractor is not being held responsible aside, I agree that leveling the current surface as best as possible and applying a new top coat will be your best bet. This should take much less time than trying to polish a bad job into a good one. A product made for larger surface areas would be my preference. Look at bar-top epoxy coatings that set slower. I think the area was too great (time constraint) for the product chosen.

[Ryan Kaylumbs]

Just wanted to give everyone an update and thank all of you for your help. The counters are finished and my wife and I are back home in Ca. We ended up taking Wayne's advise and sanding down and leveling out the epoxy. We didn't have access to a 2-part poly so we went with Minwax oil-based Poly. That ended up being a mistake. My wife and I have an 8 week old infant in the house and my mother gets migraines and is sensitive to chemical smells. We laid that first coat of oil-based Poly and the solvent smell was simply way too strong. We realized that that wasn't going to be an option. We used a scraper the next day and scraped it all off.

We decided to give Minwax's Oil-Modified Waterbased Poly in satin a try. I've never used it before but this stuff dries incredibly fast with almost no smell. We brushed it on with a 4" brush and once we were 12" in the first 4" pass was starting to dry. Not's not forgiving at all but we're happy with the results. We sanded 220-320-400 for the first coat, then up to 800 for the 2nd and 3rd coats.

The original contractor quoted them $500 to do the job, including materials. That sounded insanely cheap to be considering he spent ~$250 on materials. He said he did all kinds of countertops and showed my parents photos, but who really knows. He said it'd take him an afternoon but it ended up taking 4 days, so he had quite a bit of time into it. My parents were out of town while all the work was being done. They came back in town and saw the results and the guy wasn't returning their calls or texts. My dad was asking if the divots could be repaired. Finally the guy responded and said "I've got too much time invested into that job and don't have the time to keep working on it. You don't have to pay me for the work" and just walked away from the job, unpaid.

Here are some photos of before just so you guys can really see how bad it was:

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Here's the finished result. Better, but not perfect. There are still some visible brush strokes here and there and a few spots where the finish is slightly more glossy than the rest of the surface. Great learning expierence for us. I almost never use Poly and never brush on finishes so this was a first.

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[Jim Becker]

I think you managed a very good "save" there and any remaining imperfections can just reflect that it's a natural material.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Nice save!

[glenn bradley]

Yep, the guy was obviously a hack and quickly found out that some level of skill was required. Glad he at least didn't charge for his learning experience. Your "fix" turned out terrific. I would be happy with that any day of the week. Great save.

So, what are the odds that your parents staged the whole thing to get a visit in from the grandchild?

[Charlie Hinton]

Without adding any qualifiers, I think y'all did an excellent job.